by Agha Shahid Ali
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn’t wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn’t speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn’t I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn’t know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you’ll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
A Walk Through the Yellow Pages
Copyright ©:
1987, SUN-Gemini Press
A few random poems:
- Николай Карамзин – Пророчество на 1799 год, найденное в бумагах Нострадамуса
- Whiteness I Remember by Sylvia Plath
- And Doth Not a Meeting Like This by Thomas Moore
- Владимир Британишский – Инициалы: Д.Я
- The Snake Charmer by Sarojini Naidu
- Anecdote Of The Jar by Wallace Stevens
- Владимир Высоцкий – Заповедник
- Robert Burns: A Health To Ane I Loe Dear:
- Robert Burns: Farewell Song To The Banks Of Ayr: “I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on my road to Greenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.”-R. B.
- What the Moon Saw by Vachel Lindsay
- Frankincense and Myrrh poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про ребёнка-поросёнка
- Dora by Thomas Edward Brown
- Set out by Mahak Raithatha S
- Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- What the Sexton Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Rattlesnake Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Moon Saw by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Miner in the Desert Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Gray-Winged Fairy Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Ghost of the Gambler Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What Semiramis Said by Vachel Lindsay
- The Trap by Vachel Lindsay
- The Tale of the Tiger-Tree by Vachel Lindsay
- The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly by Vachel Lindsay
- The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit by Vachel Lindsay
- The Song of the Garden-Toad by Vachel Lindsay
- The Scissors-Grinder by Vachel Lindsay
- The Rose of Midnight by Vachel Lindsay
- The Raft by Vachel Lindsay
- The Proud Farmer by Vachel Lindsay
- The Prarie Battlements by Vachel Lindsay
- The Perfect Marriage by Vachel Lindsay
- The Mysterious Cat by Vachel Lindsay
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
